It’s amazing how many of the traditions I grew up with around this time of year are predicated upon cold weather. A couple unseasonable summer rains here helped cool things down and gave (what felt to me at least) a festive air earlier this month.

Recurring blocked ducts and an internet outage turned out to be gifts in disguise, forcing us, and me especially, to slow down. Errands, meetings, and distractions on hold, we were able to truly enjoy those simple moments that mean more to the kids at this age than anything wrapped under the tree…

• reading stories together,
• riding on mama and baba’s shoulders in the back garden,
• making funny noises and playing peek-a-boo to get David giggling,
• singing Christmas hymns over and over again,
• bush dancing around the living room,
• and counting our blessings.

Due to some end-of-the-year economizing, our children even learned to like beans this month. (But that was to be expected at some point… this recipe, via my sister, is delicious.)

David is rolling over and scooting everywhere on his back. He also sits unaided for short periods and is completely smitten with the prickly Christmas tree, velvety tree skirt, and the corkboard gingerbread man ornament Ben made when he was eight years old.

After coming out to see Nikki busking in downtown Perth, Teacher Sandra gave her a notebook full of Christmas music to start the month. Nikki impressed a dinner guest from London as well as local Christmas shoppers at a pedestrian mall with her renditions of the familiar hymns. Vi is being co-opted into Nikki’s violin school and groomed for playing the B lines in duets.

Michael continues to drum enthusiastically each day and now, thanks to his instructor, Mike, knows how to play a basic rhythm and three different fills.

As for the coming year – 2012, can you believe it?? – I would like to make some serious headway toward several items on my life list, including signing a last will and testament, getting a loft space installed so we can finally move into our house, painting at least two more rooms different colours than they were when we moved in, sewing some clothing for myself or buying some made-to-measure clothing, and learning to wear eye makeup. I would also like to read through the Bible in one year again.

To get off to the right start, my goals for January are to:

• read approximately 1/12 of the Bible
• sell and donate a few things to make space for the Christmas gifts we received (yea!)
• take advantage of the relaxed summer holiday schedule to experiment with different homeschooling rhythms
• continue trying different remedies and resting as much as possible until I am rid of the recurring blocked ducts on my left-hand side!

Nikki has been waiting patiently for the day Vi would be persuaded to play Sakioroma, the 1/16th violin Nikki has outgrown. Apparently Nikki wanted to use the immersion method to teach her little sister – the first piece of music she pulled out was a duet!

When the duet didn’t quite work as planned, Nikki’s next effort was ingenious – she placed a picture book on the music stand and she and Vi improvised based on the different vehicles’ characteristics: e.g. ambulance was fast and screechy, train slow and chuggy, etc. Of course, as first violinist, Nikki announced her interpretation of each piece before they began playing.

Both girls enjoyed this new variation of make-believe, and the second violinist was eager to turn the pages of their “music” between pieces.

This past weekend I talked with a young woman who is now grateful that her older sister forced her to harmonize endlessly with her singing when they were growing up. Here’s hoping this new musical duo remains equally in tune with each other!

I had in mind to show Nikki and Michael how to make paper snowflakes, but when we got started I realised I couldn’t remember how to produce an actual snowflake shape…

Rather than missing the small window of opportunity to do the craft by spending that time on the computer researching it, we just randomly cut designs into various-sized paper squares.

Nikki was fascinated to find that cutting in one spot made a pattern throughout the opened sheet of paper.

Michael laughed when he cut a line in a piece of paper and decided he’d created “trousers.”

Vi was much more interested in picking up the small offcuts, cradling them in a larger piece of paper, and singing “galumph went the little green frog,” a song from music class.

Meanwhile, David peeked up at us from his playmat!